Speaker 1: Welcome to the Elevation Church Podcast. Today, we wanted to
Speaker 1: share a message with you that Pastor Stephen preached at
Speaker 1: our annual praise party on New Year's Eve twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: We never could have known the hardships that would be ahead,
Speaker 1: but we believe this message will still encourage you that
Speaker 1: no matter how big our problems may seem, we serve
Speaker 1: an even bigger God. Enjoy the message. I believe that
Speaker 1: God has given you strategic influence and He's positioned you,
Speaker 1: and I want to help in this new year to
Speaker 1: set a trajectory for your faith that you can believe
Speaker 1: that God is going to use you to make a
Speaker 1: difference wherever you are. Tell somebody next to you you're
Speaker 1: a big deal. Ask him, can I get a selfie
Speaker 1: with you? In fact, pull out your phone right now?
Speaker 1: Would you do that? Just real quick, real quick? Pull
Speaker 1: out your phone, pull up your camera app, put it
Speaker 1: in self and point it right at that beautiful face
Speaker 1: of yours. And when I say three, I want you
Speaker 1: to take a picture. Are you ready? Come on, We're
Speaker 1: going to do this together, and there's a reason for it.
Speaker 1: When I say three, I want you to get a
Speaker 1: picture real quick. Are you ready on every location. If
Speaker 1: you're ready to say ready one, two, three, cool, put
Speaker 1: your phone on. I just wanted you to have proof.
Speaker 1: I just wanted you to have proof because all this year,
Speaker 1: the enemy is going to try to get you to
Speaker 1: think that you can't make it, and that your faith
Speaker 1: isn't strong enough, and that you don't have what it takes,
Speaker 1: and that you can't survive the storm. And when he
Speaker 1: does that, I want you to pull that picture up
Speaker 1: and remind him that he told you that same bs
Speaker 1: at the beginning of twenty nineteen. I'm sorry, it's late.
Speaker 1: My filter comes off at ten thirty. And I want
Speaker 1: you to have proof that the weapon may be formed,
Speaker 1: but it didn't work last time and it won't work
Speaker 1: this time. And so when he comes in your face
Speaker 1: trying to make you think this is the end and
Speaker 1: you can't do it and you're not enough and you
Speaker 1: are not significant, I want you to show him that
Speaker 1: selfie how you were in church for the last hour
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen and all for the next ten years.
Speaker 1: Just flash it at the devil and say I got proof.
Speaker 1: You know, we so easily confused use the presence of
Speaker 1: God with the absence of problems, the goodness of God
Speaker 1: with the absence of problems. I'm preaching already and I
Speaker 1: haven't read my verse. Second Kings, chapter six, verse eight.
Speaker 1: How many of you this is your first New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve ever in church? How many of you? If I
Speaker 1: knew what you were doing last New Year's Eve, I'd
Speaker 1: be really proud of how much progress you've made. Wow,
Speaker 1: You're my favorite. In Second Kings chapter six, there is
Speaker 1: an illustration of what happens in these moments where we
Speaker 1: must make a decision whether we are going to view
Speaker 1: our life through faith or through fear. And I want
Speaker 1: to share it with you from Second Kings chapter six,
Speaker 1: beginning in verse eight. And please pray for me, because
Speaker 1: I take these moments seriously. Not so much just to
Speaker 1: give you a lesson where you can write a few
Speaker 1: things down or a few tweetable, quotable lines, but to
Speaker 1: really speak something over your life that will bring to
Speaker 1: closure some of the conflict that you've been going through,
Speaker 1: so that you can transform it and convert it into
Speaker 1: power for what's ahead of you. That's why we came tonight,
Speaker 1: and that's what we intend to do. In tewod Kings
Speaker 1: chapter six, verse eight, the Bible says now the King
Speaker 1: of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with
Speaker 1: his officers, he said, I will set up my camp
Speaker 1: in such and such a place. The Man of God
Speaker 1: sent word to the King of Israel, beware of passing
Speaker 1: that place, because the Aramians are going down there. So
Speaker 1: the King of Israel checked on the place indicated by
Speaker 1: the Man of God time and again. Elisha warned the
Speaker 1: king so that he was on his guard in such places.
Speaker 1: This enraged the King of Aram. He summoned his officers
Speaker 1: and demanded of them, will you not tell me which
Speaker 1: of us is on the side of the King of Israel.
Speaker 1: Do you know how mad you made the devil just
Speaker 1: by showing up tonight. I mean, he said, so many
Speaker 1: traps for you this year. Tried to make you bitter,
Speaker 1: tried to make you envious of others, tried to keep
Speaker 1: you in a depression. I know you've been going through things.
Speaker 1: He tried. He couldn't get you to go crazy, so
Speaker 1: he started messing with your kids. He thought, if he
Speaker 1: could get your kids to go crazy enough, maybe you
Speaker 1: would lose your hope in God. Even some people in
Speaker 1: your life left this year that you were counting on
Speaker 1: and after all of that, here you are. The Bible
Speaker 1: says it enraged the enemies of Israel because no matter
Speaker 1: what they did to try to bring down the king,
Speaker 1: God had someone on the inside to warn them about it.
Speaker 1: Tell the person next to you, I got somebody on
Speaker 1: the inside. And it makes the devil mad, and it
Speaker 1: makes them a little bit confused, And honestly, it makes
Speaker 1: him nervous to see you praising God like you've been
Speaker 1: praising God tonight. I mean this that some of you,
Speaker 1: just by lifting your hands tonight, you caused all kinds
Speaker 1: of confusion in hell. Not only have angels been watching
Speaker 1: you this year, but the demons have been watching you too,
Speaker 1: the ones that were assigned to wreak havoc in your mind.
Speaker 1: And they thought, surely by now you'd be tired. They thought, surely,
Speaker 1: after all you've been through, you would skip church and
Speaker 1: sleep in. But look at you in the presence of God.
Speaker 1: To confuse the enemy, now we need to take nineteen
Speaker 1: seconds and embarrass the enemy to let him know him.
Speaker 1: Then what he did, it didn't work. Then what he
Speaker 1: did it hurt, but it didn't work. You'll still got
Speaker 1: eleven seconds on the clock. Read my scripture. I'm reading
Speaker 1: my scripture. This is a dignified moment. You're chaotic, church members. Well,
Speaker 1: he was mad because everywhere he wanted to attack Israel,
Speaker 1: God's chosen people. There was a there was a I
Speaker 1: don't want to call him a spy. He was a
Speaker 1: prophet Elisha. He had an ability to see things. And
Speaker 1: you think Siri is scary. Really, Alexa scares me. How
Speaker 1: stuff starts showing up on my phone And I think
Speaker 1: Alexa is talking to Siri, and Siri is talking to Google,
Speaker 1: and Google is talking to Instagram, and I'm terrified that
Speaker 1: they're listening to me. Now watch this. This is interesting
Speaker 1: because the spirit of God in Elisha would give him
Speaker 1: a location where the enemy was going to attack God's people.
Speaker 1: And when they called together all of the different high
Speaker 1: ranking officials to see who is the one who is
Speaker 1: spoiling our ambushes and causing our attempts to attack the
Speaker 1: people of God not to work, the response came in
Speaker 1: verse twelve, none of us, my lord the king, but Elisha,
Speaker 1: the prophet who is in Israel, tells the King of
Speaker 1: Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom. Yikes.
Speaker 1: So everywhere that Israel travel, God would send a word
Speaker 1: through Elisha to tell them where they needed Verse tences
Speaker 1: to be on their guard in such places. Tonight, I
Speaker 1: want to tell you that for this year twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: you know, like twenty twenty vision. Yeah, for this year,
Speaker 1: you need to see some things with your spirit that
Speaker 1: you cannot see with your senses. And the reason this
Speaker 1: is so important is because if you don't recognize where
Speaker 1: the enemy is attacking you the most frequently and ask
Speaker 1: God to give you insight into the places of your
Speaker 1: greatest vulnerability, you will spend all of your energy this
Speaker 1: year fighting battles that you could have avoided if you
Speaker 1: would have learned the lessons of last year. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't like this part of my sermon. I know makes
Speaker 1: you mad when you realize that a lot of the
Speaker 1: battles that you fought you could have avoided if you
Speaker 1: had listened to what was on the inside instead of
Speaker 1: responding to what was on the outside. So I want
Speaker 1: to spend this year with what Paul called open eyes
Speaker 1: in my heart. It sounds grotesque when you describe it
Speaker 1: like that, but he was saying that there is a
Speaker 1: kind of sight that does not revolve around external stimuli,
Speaker 1: and it is more based on internal processing. If I
Speaker 1: could break it down even more for you, I would
Speaker 1: use this phrase on his guard in such places to
Speaker 1: describe how I think God intends to pret text you
Speaker 1: as you go into this next season, this next decade
Speaker 1: of your life, and that requires self awareness. There's a
Speaker 1: theological term progressive revelation. It means that while God never changes,
Speaker 1: our understanding of Him unfolds over time, not necessarily chronologically,
Speaker 1: but as we experience different things in our life, we
Speaker 1: come to see God in different ways. Even the Bible
Speaker 1: is constructed with the progressive revelation in mind, so that
Speaker 1: you see concepts introduced in the Book of Genesis that
Speaker 1: are mirrored in the Book of Revelation. That's the first
Speaker 1: and the last, and by the time you get to Revelation,
Speaker 1: you get a full picture of what was hinted at
Speaker 1: in Genesis. So you see types and shadows in the
Speaker 1: Old Testament which ultimately point to Jesus Christ, but they're
Speaker 1: pointing to something that you have not clearly seen yet.
Speaker 1: Life is this way. It is that many of us,
Speaker 1: in this season of our life are going to see
Speaker 1: things that we only saw a shadow of in a
Speaker 1: previous season of our life. Progressive revelation means that God
Speaker 1: wants to show you some things about himself and even
Speaker 1: about you that will cause you to be able to
Speaker 1: avoid what I call unnecessary roughness. It's a football term,
Speaker 1: but it also applies when we're going up against the devil.
Speaker 1: And let me help you with something real quick. Some
Speaker 1: of the battles that you fought last year were in
Speaker 1: places that you never should have been. I know it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a praise party, but before we party,
Speaker 1: can I preach for a moment? I got twenty four
Speaker 1: minutes to tell you about this. There are certain places
Speaker 1: that you need to stay away from this year, because
Speaker 1: if you go there and then ask God to protect
Speaker 1: you in those places. I don't know whether to start
Speaker 1: with Facebook, or whether to start with CNN, or whether
Speaker 1: to start with Fox News, but we have to be
Speaker 1: very careful about where we go. Watch this not just
Speaker 1: with our bodies, but with our minds, because it is
Speaker 1: very possible that God is trying to warn you about
Speaker 1: certain places that every time you go there you start
Speaker 1: feeling judgmental, or every time you go there you start
Speaker 1: having comparison, or every time you go there you start
Speaker 1: feeling like your life is missing something. And if I
Speaker 1: were you, I would put that Bible app on the
Speaker 1: front screen of my iPhone this year. For those of
Speaker 1: you who aren't saved yet, you might have an Android,
Speaker 1: but you could put the Bible app on there too,
Speaker 1: and I would find that thing that deletes some of
Speaker 1: the other apps. And can we all just make a
Speaker 1: covenantal agreement in the presence of God on this the
Speaker 1: last sermon of twenty nineteen. Let's all not post our
Speaker 1: workouts until we have been doing them consistently for at
Speaker 1: least four weeks this year. Can we do that? Now,
Speaker 1: look at somebody and say, I don't have to post
Speaker 1: it to prove it, because if I do the work,
Speaker 1: you will notice the results. I won't have to screenshot
Speaker 1: my sweat on the floor. Nobody wants to see your spandex.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Do a rep in the secret place,
Speaker 1: will know, will know. And it's really interesting how certain
Speaker 1: places bring me into vulnerability. And I just want to
Speaker 1: ask the question, have you lived long enough to know
Speaker 1: yet where you're most vulnerable? There were certain places where
Speaker 1: the enemy intended to attack, but because the king had
Speaker 1: somebody on the inside. Wouldn't it be nice to have
Speaker 1: somebody on the inside that could tell you, like it
Speaker 1: can tell you where there's traffic, and it can show
Speaker 1: you on the GPS where there's gonna be traffic. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be nice to have somebody on the inside like
Speaker 1: Elisha was on the inside and he was feeding information
Speaker 1: to the King saying, don't go there. Wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: nice to have somebody on the inside. Wouldn't it be
Speaker 1: cool if you didn't have to go into this year alone,
Speaker 1: but you could have somebody on the inside. Wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be awesome if when Jesus Christ went to heaven he
Speaker 1: sent down his spirit to live in those who would
Speaker 1: believe in his name. Wouldn't it be awesome if you
Speaker 1: had somebody on the inside, the spirit of truth, the
Speaker 1: spirit of righteousness, the spirit of God telling you don't
Speaker 1: go there, don't think that, don't complete that, cut off
Speaker 1: that conversation, don't give them all that information. And here's
Speaker 1: the beautiful thing about it. God will show you where
Speaker 1: to be on your guard if you will give him
Speaker 1: the opportunity. Even this, God will even show you what
Speaker 1: days of the week you are more susceptible to discouragement,
Speaker 1: so you can plan around it. Y'all, don't believe in God.
Speaker 1: You don't think he's in you. You don't think God
Speaker 1: can show you about yourself what he knows from the
Speaker 1: inside up. You don't think the one who created you
Speaker 1: knows how to counsel you. And yet we all the
Speaker 1: time we go into states of discouragement and then we
Speaker 1: try to pray our way out of them. But we
Speaker 1: got discouraged because of a mental game that we played,
Speaker 1: and no cliches can rescue us. New Year Knew You
Speaker 1: because if we told the truth, it doesn't sound as cute, right.
Speaker 1: What really has to happen for you to change is
Speaker 1: that Romans twelfth says you have to be transformed by
Speaker 1: the renewing of your mind. Okay, So that means that
Speaker 1: you have to do things a different way for a
Speaker 1: long time. And so the pathways that were in your
Speaker 1: mind called neuropathway, that were causing you to do the
Speaker 1: things that you don't want to do anymore, whether that's
Speaker 1: an addiction to pornography, or whether that's an addiction to
Speaker 1: a substance, or whether that's an addiction to food, or
Speaker 1: whether that's an addiction to gossip or whether that's an
Speaker 1: addiction to judging people who struggle with pornography, food, or substances.
Speaker 1: Because I can preach to everybody in the room, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you, Pastor Steve, I don't struggle with these sins
Speaker 1: that you mention. It's actually great because I'm starting this
Speaker 1: new year with a pretty clean slate. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: I've been walking with the Lord for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I don't really have any of these struggles except
Speaker 1: the one with self righteousness that I am expressing by
Speaker 1: saying that I don't need anything new from God this year.
Speaker 1: But to really have a new year, New year, new
Speaker 1: you doesn't really work like that new year new neural pathways. See,
Speaker 1: it doesn't preach's good. Who's gonna put that on Instagram?
Speaker 1: But the fact of the matter is for God to
Speaker 1: do something new in your life this year. You will
Speaker 1: have to save your strength for the things that matter,
Speaker 1: and that means you are going to have to listen
Speaker 1: to the spirit of God. And the spirit of God
Speaker 1: will tell you, don't return that phone call, don't return
Speaker 1: that text, don't even go there. You'll start thinking something
Speaker 1: in your mind and the Spirit of the Lord will
Speaker 1: show you. You can't afford to play with that, you
Speaker 1: can't play around with the devil, and then ask God
Speaker 1: to deliver you from the devil that you were playing with.
Speaker 1: There are some places you cannot afford to go this year.
Speaker 1: Your soul cannot afford it, your joy cannot afford it,
Speaker 1: your peace cannot afford it. And I've got somebody on
Speaker 1: the inside that can show me where the attack is.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be cool if some of the battles that
Speaker 1: you fought last year you could avoid this year, so
Speaker 1: you'd be singing, this is how I fight my battles.
Speaker 1: And you're just sitting there and they're expecting you to
Speaker 1: be swinging, but you're not fighting your battles by swinging.
Speaker 1: You're fighting your battles by staying away from the places.
Speaker 1: I know this is heavy for a party, but I
Speaker 1: got to preach it because God will not strengthen you
Speaker 1: for a battle that He did not call you to fight.
Speaker 1: So you've got to let go this year of the
Speaker 1: need to prove things to people because that it is
Speaker 1: not a battle God has called you to fight. You've
Speaker 1: got to let go this year of trying to of
Speaker 1: trying to make up for things that are in the
Speaker 1: past and that God has already forgiven. That is not
Speaker 1: a battle God has called you to fight. It is over.
Speaker 1: It is gone, the oldest gone, the newest come. You
Speaker 1: have got to ask the spirit of God what areas
Speaker 1: to avoid in this year? Okay? So Elisha is giving
Speaker 1: the information for the military attack, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: the spirit of God is trying to give you information
Speaker 1: for the spiritual attacks that you're under, but you keep
Speaker 1: going two old places. And when he found out about it,
Speaker 1: not only was he mad, but he was determined to
Speaker 1: get rid of this guy because Elisha was a problem.
Speaker 1: Elisha was a it was a problem. Are you a
Speaker 1: problem for the enemy? I'm gonna tell you how you
Speaker 1: can know if you are. If nothing ever goes wrong
Speaker 1: in your life and you never burned the toast, if
Speaker 1: everything is so nice and neat and orderly, and you
Speaker 1: never face any kind of resistance, it means that the
Speaker 1: devil isn't threatened by you at all. And here's how
Speaker 1: I know that from the text, because again we often
Speaker 1: perceive that the presence of God is proven by the
Speaker 1: absence of problems. Right. Wrong couldn't be more untrue, because
Speaker 1: when Elisha was giving the word of the Lord to
Speaker 1: prevent the attack. For the people of God, watch what
Speaker 1: the king did in verse thirteen. Go find out where
Speaker 1: he is. The moment that you begin to fulfill the
Speaker 1: purpose God created you for, the enemy will dispatch special forces.
Speaker 1: Raise your hand. If you had some things happened this
Speaker 1: year that made you question if God even loved you,
Speaker 1: raise your hand. Be honest enough to raise it. I
Speaker 1: suggest to you keep it up. I suggest to you
Speaker 1: that the reason you had some of your problems is
Speaker 1: because you are such a problem for the darkness, because
Speaker 1: of the light that you carry. Somebody shout, I'm a problem.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you how you can prove that
Speaker 1: God is with you. Okay, the way that you can
Speaker 1: prove that God is with you is not by the
Speaker 1: fact that nothing bad ever happens to you. The proof,
Speaker 1: my mom used to say, the proof is in the pudding.
Speaker 1: Well I found out when it comes to the things
Speaker 1: of God, the proof is in the problem. How do
Speaker 1: I know that God is using me and that He
Speaker 1: has great plans for me? How do I know that
Speaker 1: God has put a big calling on my life? How
Speaker 1: do I know that God has something outstanding for my future.
Speaker 1: I know the size of my calling by the size
Speaker 1: of my problem. Y'all shout if you've been through something
Speaker 1: this year. When Elsa started telling the king where to
Speaker 1: look for the attack, the King of Arab said, you
Speaker 1: gotta find him. He's a problem. The enemy set special
Speaker 1: forces for you because you are right on the verge
Speaker 1: of breaking a generational curse and changing a plot line.
Speaker 1: You're a problem for the darkness. You're a problem, he said,
Speaker 1: Go find out where he is so I can send
Speaker 1: men and capture him. And the report came back, he's
Speaker 1: in Dothan. Then he sent horses and chariots and a
Speaker 1: strong force there, and they went by night and surrounded
Speaker 1: the city. Now verse fifteen is really what I want
Speaker 1: to preach. You'll get ready. You're ready? Are you ready?
Speaker 1: Are you ready? Because I only got twelve minutes to
Speaker 1: preach this, and I'm gonna need a little bit of help.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for verse fifteen? No, you're not. You
Speaker 1: can't be, because when the servant of the men of
Speaker 1: God got up and went out early the next morning
Speaker 1: an army with horses and chariots that surrounded the city.
Speaker 1: Oh no, my lord, what shall we do? Asked, Now,
Speaker 1: this is this is something that I need to illustrate.
Speaker 1: Give me, like Wade, give me like a six men
Speaker 1: on the stage, real quick, and six men that are
Speaker 1: not very big. The team captain. Yeah, he's too big,
Speaker 1: he's too big. I need six men that are not
Speaker 1: very big. Six men that are not very big, and
Speaker 1: don't be insulted if he chooses you. Six men that
Speaker 1: are not very big. Six men they are not very big.
Speaker 1: Come on up, six men that are not very big,
Speaker 1: Six men that are not very big, Six men that
Speaker 1: are not very big. I want you all to form
Speaker 1: a circle around me and look intimidating. All right, not
Speaker 1: too close, just like how the servant woke up. Get
Speaker 1: around me. Six men that are not too big. Six
Speaker 1: men that are not too big. We need we may
Speaker 1: need two more. Give me eight men that are not
Speaker 1: too big. One, two, three, four, y'all get all around me,
Speaker 1: Get all around me and look ferocious, look at me like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna kill you. He're that prophet, that's man you know,
Speaker 1: messing up? Aul. Come on, it's a problem. Come on,
Speaker 1: give me all the way around, all the way around.
Speaker 1: Six men that are not too big. Eight men that
Speaker 1: are not too big, and the servant, I want to
Speaker 1: show you something. This is gonna be so helpful for
Speaker 1: you to understand what you go through in the next
Speaker 1: twelve months and in the next ten years, and for
Speaker 1: as long as God's hand will be on you. The
Speaker 1: servant woke up right, and the first thing he saw
Speaker 1: that morning when he got up, he saw something that
Speaker 1: he didn't know how to handle. Hm hmm. And I
Speaker 1: think everybody here, personally speaking, has something that they're looking
Speaker 1: at that they don't know how to handle. It's usually
Speaker 1: not a military thing, it's a mental thing. So I've
Speaker 1: got I've got maybe like, I got a decision I
Speaker 1: don't know how to make. I got bills, I got this,
Speaker 1: I got that, I got transitioned. So he's looking around
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh no, my lord, what shall we
Speaker 1: do now? Elisha is the prophet that would tell the
Speaker 1: king where the enemy was going to attack. And here's
Speaker 1: my question. If he knew where the king was going
Speaker 1: to be attacked, why did he get attacked? Wow? If
Speaker 1: you have the ability to know when other people are
Speaker 1: going to be attacked, how can you not see it
Speaker 1: when you're going to be attacked. Have you ever noticed
Speaker 1: how easy it is to give other people advice for
Speaker 1: their marriage, for raising their children. All but mess around
Speaker 1: and have one of your own, and you will shut
Speaker 1: your stupid mouth when it happens to you. And the
Speaker 1: servant goes, oh no, my lord, what shall we do? Now?
Speaker 1: Watch what Elisha says. Give me next verse put on
Speaker 1: the screen. Please don't be afraid. The prophet answer, oh man,
Speaker 1: this sounds like great advice. Don't be afraid. Now. These
Speaker 1: are chariots and horses. These are not you know, no offense.
Speaker 1: But this is not you. This is trained Syrian soldiers.
Speaker 1: And the prophet says, don't be afraid. Those who are
Speaker 1: with us are more than those who are with them. James,
Speaker 1: get me twelve men who are real big, twelve men
Speaker 1: who are as big as you. Come on right now.
Speaker 1: I need twelve big men, twelve really fierce men, twelve
Speaker 1: men that are on CrossFit and creating and protein and
Speaker 1: TRT and AH and steroids. Come on, I need twelve
Speaker 1: big men, and I need you to come here because
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be Elisha. I'm gonna be Elisha, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stand here in the middle, and I need you
Speaker 1: all to come surround. Me, because the Bible says that
Speaker 1: when Elishah praid, come on, get real close, get real close.
Speaker 1: Come on, I don't have any proximity issues, not that close.
Speaker 1: Back up a little bit, come in, Come in close
Speaker 1: as we can get and I can still you have
Speaker 1: function functionality. Come on, getting close, getting close, because Elisha said.
Speaker 1: Elisha said, don't be afraid those who are with us,
Speaker 1: come on, surround me all the way. Those who are
Speaker 1: with us are more than those who are with them.
Speaker 1: Those who are with us are more than those who
Speaker 1: are with them. It not only means we've got more
Speaker 1: in quantity, but they are greater in strength because those
Speaker 1: who are with us are more than those who are
Speaker 1: with them. So I'm gonna show you something real quick.
Speaker 1: So he said, he said, don't be afraid. Those who
Speaker 1: are with us are more than those who are with them.
Speaker 1: And then the next verse, verse seventeen, says and Elisha prayed,
Speaker 1: Oh Lord, open his eyes so that he may see. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: if I'm the servant, I'll be right back. Stay right there,
Speaker 1: stay right there, stay right there. If I'm the servant,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that God is about to do something so awesome,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna make all the enemies, the first ones
Speaker 1: that came to attack. I'm gonna close my eyes and
Speaker 1: he's gonna pray. And when I open my eyes, all
Speaker 1: the enemies are gonna be gone. So you'll leave real quick,
Speaker 1: just leave, just go somewhere. Not the good ones, the
Speaker 1: bad ones. So yeah, yeah, that's what I'm expecting. Open
Speaker 1: my eyes. Wow, it's a miracle. But come back, come back,
Speaker 1: come back, come back, come back, come back, come back,
Speaker 1: come back. Instead, get back in position quickly, quickly. It's
Speaker 1: almost midnight. Am I gonna show you something? So Elisha's praying, right,
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, Lord, open his eyes that he may see.
Speaker 1: And he opens his eyes, and what does he see?
Speaker 1: The same enemy that he saw before the prayer. In fact,
Speaker 1: go to the next verse, verse eighteen. As the enemy
Speaker 1: came toward him, Now stop. How did Elisha pray and
Speaker 1: the enemy still came toward him? How did Elisha, the
Speaker 1: powerful man of God? How did Elisha who had the word?
Speaker 1: How did Elisha the prophet that struck the water? How
Speaker 1: did Elisha the successor to Elijah? How did Elisha who
Speaker 1: let an entire nation into a time of revival? Who
Speaker 1: could purify the waters of the Jericho. How could Elisha
Speaker 1: keep praying but the attack kept coming. Well, the proof
Speaker 1: of the presence of God is not the absence of problems.
Speaker 1: The proof of the presence of God is not that
Speaker 1: the problems disappeared. The proof of the presence of God
Speaker 1: is that He kept me surrounded and the enemy came,
Speaker 1: but he couldn't kill me. The enemy came, de presant came,
Speaker 1: the panic attack came. I could barely catch my breath,
Speaker 1: but somehow the word of God sustained me through every
Speaker 1: season of my life. I almost lost my mind, I
Speaker 1: almost gave up, I almost let go, But there were
Speaker 1: more for me than against me. And I declare into
Speaker 1: the darkness of your life, greater is he that is
Speaker 1: in me. And the proof is in the problem. If
Speaker 1: God sent you a really big problem, he's about to
Speaker 1: demonstrate that he's a really big God. I got a
Speaker 1: really big God, I got a really good God. I
Speaker 1: got a really faithful Savior. So I got a really
Speaker 1: great praise, not because of the absence of problems, but
Speaker 1: because of the presence of God. Hey, hey, stand up
Speaker 1: as two minutes and forty three second until the next
Speaker 1: decade of your life it's two minutes and thirty eight
Speaker 1: seconds until the next decade of your life. And tomorrow
Speaker 1: morning when you open your eyes, guess what's still going
Speaker 1: to be there? Your problems, but guess what's within you. Wow,
Speaker 1: y'all got my back when I say this. Get ready
Speaker 1: to rejoice. Get ready to rejoice. The bigger the problem,
Speaker 1: the greater the opportunity for the presence of God. Y'all
Speaker 1: don't even need me to finish the sentence. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. The devil's in everything. He could detrack
Speaker 1: you down. He put a target on your back. He
Speaker 1: ain't right in your head. But look at your praise.
Speaker 1: It's your purpose. Look at your praise, look at your God.
Speaker 1: And I say, I'm gonna put it up to a vote.
Speaker 1: What say ye, elevation. Let's stop telling God how big
Speaker 1: our problem is and start telling our problem. I got
Speaker 1: it even bigger. God greater as He greater is he?
Speaker 1: If God mean for you, look, get there guess him.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of
Speaker 1: you who give generously to this ministry. Is because of
Speaker 1: you that this ministry is possible. You can click the
Speaker 1: link in the description to give now or visit Elevation
Speaker 1: Church dot org slash podcast for more information and if
Speaker 1: you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe. You can share
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Speaker 1: take a screenshot and share it on your social stories
Speaker 1: and tag at Elevation Church. Thanks again for listening. God
Speaker 1: bless you.